Postwar Blues

Sex. Youth. Drugs. The themes of Pains of Youth, a play written more than 80 years ago by Ferdinand Bruckner, are decidedly modern. In it, a group of twenty-something medical students engage in self-destructive behavior to combat boredom and find purpose and meaning in their lives. Picture MTV's The Real World in post-World War I Vienna, and you will get the idea. Heck, it even contains the requisite lesbian. The 7th Sign theater company has revived the work at TriBeCa's Access Theater in a flawed production that does not convey the power and intelligence of Bruckner's play. Instead, it relies on shock over substance. But lesbian kisses and wanton drug abuse are hardly shocking to the MTV generation, and these moments only serve to punctuate an otherwise dull show.

The play centers on seven young people living in a boarding house in Vienna ("seven strangers picked to live in a house…"). As several of them near graduation from medical school, they have to deal with the uncertainties of grown-up life in postwar Europe and face the disillusionment left after the war.

The day before Marie (Kari Floberg) is to graduate from medical school, the sadomasochistic Freder (Mick Lauer) reveals that her boyfriend Petrell (Josh Heine), whom she disturbingly refers to as "Little Boy," has fallen in love with another medical student, Irene (Amy Ewing). Marie, feeling distraught and alone, falls into the arms of her manic roommate, Desiree (Sheila Carrasco). During all of this, Freder performs the ultimate manipulation: transforming the character of the house's maid, Lucy (Donna Lazar), from trusting and innocent to bawdy and wanton.

Let it be said that this is an ambitious play to produce. In general, translations (the original was in German) can be overly formal, and the source material, although quite provocative, is heavy-handed. It takes an extremely seasoned director and group of actors to achieve the balance between theatrics and subtlety that the play needs to succeed. Unfortunately, this production's cast and directors, all relative newcomers, show that they are still green.

Director Charlie Wilson, assisted by Mike Fitzgerald, leaves the cast to navigate the awkward interactions alone. As a result, for a play about sex there is surprisingly little chemistry. Also, many of the actors screamed out most of their lines, making it nearly impossible to understand the dialogue. It seemed that every emotion—love, hate, anger, fear, happiness, etc.—was conveyed through the same heightened, screechy tones. If the play was performed in German, this technique might be effective, but the Access Theater is a small black box and requires greater control. Although the actors, most if not all theater school grads, appeared passionate about their characters, their passion seemed misguided.

The play's rhythm was interrupted by unnecessary set changes, making a long production even longer. The cast, acting as stagehands, would move furniture around, perhaps to indicate a new room or to offer the audience a different perspective on the action. It was never clear why this was done. Wilson would have better served the play by keeping the sets the same throughout.

Still, the production was not without merit. The costumes, designed by Katja Andreiev, capture the time period and the characters remarkably well. Desiree's kimono-esque nightgown ideally suited a sexually liberated free spirit. And as Lucy changed from housekeeper to glorified streetwalker, her clothes went from dowdy to decadent. Andreiev's research and attention to detail was apparent in all of her creations.

But ultimately, clever costumes are not enough to save this muddled production. Pains of Youth offers a window into an era not very different from our own. It is a worthy play in need of a more fully realized presentation.

Anatomy of a Breakup

Everyone wants what he or she cannot have, especially when it comes to love. Single men and women, eager to find lasting love, envy friends in relationships. But these same friends in relationships oftentimes covet the freedom and unpredictability of being single, particularly when their love begins to sour. When it comes down to it, being in love can be terrible, and being alone can be worse. At least in the hands of Jason Mantzoukas and Jessica St. Clair, a comedy team described by some as a modern-day Gracie Allen and George Burns or Elaine May and Mike Nichols, the miserable underbelly of love also proves hilarious.

The duo, whose last show, I Will Not Apologize, was featured at HBO's U.S. Comedy Arts Festival, has teamed up once again for We Used to Go Out at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater. The result is a laugh-out-loud look at the breakdown of a relationship.

Playing themselves in a Curb Your Enthusiasm sort of way, Jason and Jessica are a couple on the brink of a breakup. We Used to Go Out focuses on that time when both parties know it is over but stay together anyway because, well, it is the evil you know versus the evil you do not know. From spicing it up a bit (with a lesbian couple Jason finds on the Internet) to learning how to please your man properly (let's just say there is flicking and clapping—Jessica's "signature move"—involved), the show is an unapologetically vulgar look at the lengths people take to make everything O.K.

But the many attempts to save their relationship fail, and Jessica and Jason do end their relationship over a nasty exchange of answering-machine messages. But as bad as they thought their love life was, single life proves to be even more pitiful. Jason, wearing three-week-old sweatpants (Jessica threw his clothes out on the street, and most were taken by a homeless man), comes crawling back to her, only to find out she has fallen for a ne'er-do-well named Scooter, also played by Mantzoukas. To Jason, this is not a name but "a mode of transportation," which only adds insult to injury.

This show is nothing new—anyone who has been through a painful breakup, or has endured being single after a painful breakup, can relate, and yet it feels entirely fresh. Mantzoukas and St. Clair have a chemistry, even during their most off-color moments, that most real couples would envy. They are bold and wonderful comics who take ordinary and rather depressing material and repackage it in a totally spontaneous way.

Mantzoukas's charming nature and quick wit are very appealing. And considering the way things end up for Jason, women who have trouble separating the character from the actor will surely want to help heal his wounds. He plays not only Jason and Scooter but also Peggy, Jessica's rather manly best friend, and he could easily steal the show from a lesser stage presence. But St. Clair holds her own. Even at her most vulgar, she draws empathy and speaks to the confused woman inside many of us. She also bares a striking resemblance to Rachel McAdams, which makes a surprising scene involving, of all things, the movie The Notebook (in which McAdams starred) all the more hilarious.

We Used to Go Out is 50 minutes and $5 well spent. No matter how bad your love life might be, you will leave realizing that it could always be a lot worse, which, to my mind, is priceless.

Proof Positive

When David Auburn's Proof first premiered in 2000, it took the theater world by storm. Quickly transferring to Broadway from the Manhattan Theater Club, it garnered five Tony Awards, including Best Play, and won the Pulitzer for drama. Auburn's compelling work about trust, sacrifice, and the wonder and madness of mathematics captured the popular imagination and critical attention. It was an intensely captivating play that deserved all of its accolades. Ground Up Productions is now reviving Proof at the Manhattan Theater Source. Its production, which is much more modest in scale than the original, further proves that this play has all the makings of a modern classic. Its early success cannot be attributed to the size of the house (Manhattan Theater Source has a few hundred fewer seats than the Walter Kerr Theater) or whether household names are in the show (the Broadway production starred Mary-Louise Parker; this production stars four relative unknowns). Proof works first and foremost because of Auburn's brilliant writing. Still as engaging as ever, the play, directed by Adam Gerdts in this revival, does not disappoint.

The story begins when Robert (Stuart Marshall), an acclaimed mathematician, startles his mathematician daughter, Catherine (Kate Middleton), who is asleep on the porch in the middle of the night. He wakes her so they can celebrate her 25th birthday with a bottle of cheap champagne. But when his former student Hal (Guy Olivieri) appears, Robert vanishes.

Actually, it is the night before Robert's funeral, and Catherine has only dreamed that she saw her father. She wakes from her slumber when Hal emerges from the attic after poring over notebooks filled with Robert's nonsensical writings scrawled during his years of mental breakdown. The young mathematician is determined to find any shred of brilliance left among these scribblings.

Eventually, Catherine does show him a work of unquestionable genius, but its authorship is called into question by Hal and her sister, Claire (Amy Heidt), who is in town for the funeral and to convince Catherine to live with her in New York. Claire, a mildly successful, even-keeled urbanite, thinks her sister inherited both her father's intelligence and his susceptibility to insanity. With no concrete proof as to whose work it actually is, Hal, a man of science, is forced to realize the unpredictability of true brilliance.

Catherine sacrificed college to care for her ailing father, and Middleton's performance captures the social awkwardness and gruffness that comes with such isolation. But Middleton fails to display the quality of madness that Auburn equates with genius—an insanity, it's implied, that Catherine may also succumb to, like her father. Rather, Middleton is depressed, mopey, and withdrawn. It makes her all the more human, but forces one to wonder whether someone without a hint of madness could in fact be truly brilliant. Middleton's performance begs the question without convincingly answering it.

Olivieri, Marshall, and Heidt are all strong in their supporting roles. Olivieri's Hal is passionate—about math and Catherine—but he is ultimately limited by his work and mediocre career. Even in his distrust of Catherine, he is kind and motivated by his feelings for her, yet he remains aloof, as one would imagine someone obsessed with numbers would be.

Marshall embodies Robert's manic brilliance, which is illustrated in Catherine's flashbacks when he switches from lovable and caring to frenzied and possessed. Heidt's stability and assuredness as Claire balances out Middleton's Catherine. Claire has spent years working endlessly to pay the bills for her father and sister once her father could no longer work. She is smart and successful, but in a bland way when compared with her sister and father, Still, Heidt conveys this without giving a one-note performance.

The production is guided by Gerdt's deft directing, which keeps the pace from flagging. Travis R. McHale's lighting design helps maintain a sense of timing and rhythm, as all the action takes place on a quaint and intimate back porch at varying points over a long weekend.

Overall, Ground Up's Proof shows what makes this play a classic in the first place: it is intense, intelligent, and thoughtful. If you've seen it before, it deserves a second viewing. If you haven't, definitely go to the Manhattan Theater Source for this worthwhile production.

On the Front Lines

The International Federation of Journalists recently issued a report documenting that 150 journalists and media staff died in 2005, the most ever recorded in a one-year time period. This statistic should debunk the old notion of the glamorous life led by war correspondents, if it has not been proved archaic already. But what this document does not touch on—and what the evening news neglects to report—is the price paid by the thousands who do survive. Safety, a new play by award-winning British playwright Chris Thorpe, aims to shed light on this disturbing situation. Safety is the second part in a trilogy of plays that examine various aspects of the human experience in response to violent political conflict. It is the dark and complex tale of Michael (David Wilson Barnes), a British war photographer renowned for his iconic global images in the late 20th century. He is an absentee husband and father who has trained himself to see the world through a lens—an occupational hazard of sorts. This allows him to remain at a safe distance, not only from the violent images he documents but also from his own family. But when a stranger named Sean saves Michael's young daughter from drowning while Michael was standing only feet away, he is forced to re-evaluate his roles as a journalist, husband, and father.

Thorpe's play, under the superb direction of Daisy Walker, maintains a heightened level of intensity throughout. This intensity is echoed in designer Kevin Judge's stark, white minimalist set, which doubles as a hotel room and Michael's living room. The set is startling in its emptiness, and in essence represents the dichotomy between the disturbing acts Michael has witnessed and the void it has left in him. The fact that the living room is without any family photographs—and he is a photographer—and that it also serves as the place where Michael carries on an affair with a journalist further illustrates this point.

On this blank canvas, the talented ensemble cast, led by Barnes, delivers compelling performances all around. They clearly relish playing the complex characters Thorpe has created. None are very likable, but none are despicable either. They are human and real.

Michael's wife, Susan, has given up on him and on their marriage. She used to be dazzled by his job and loved hearing about his adventures, but now she is disillusioned by the toll it has taken on her family. Katie Firth plays her with a dejected reserve that enables her to maintain a sense of strength and dignity.

Sean, played by Jeffrey Clarke, at first appears awkward and weak when he comes to the couple's house for dinner. He brings a jar of peanuts as a present, arrives soaking wet, and feels completely out of place in the upscale surroundings. This causes Michael to underestimate Sean's inner fire, a result of serving time in jail. He scorns Michael for his inablity to save his daughter and for his photographs that chronicle death without making an attempt to preserve life. Clarke's performance makes believable the young man's transition, in the course of one evening, from being feeble to being in control.

Susan Molloy plays the other woman in Michael's life. She is a features writer and celebrity interviewer who meets him on assignment and becomes infatuated more with his lifestyle than with their relationship. Susan is Michael 20 years ago, eager to take on the world and naïve about the cost.

But the show belongs to Barnes and his controlled performance as the conflicted photographer. Michael unapologetically embodies the contradictions of those in the profession and the difficulties they face. Barnes's performance--part blowhard, part masochist, part weakling—is equally unapologetic, and honest and raw. Perhaps for the first time is his life, Michael is exposed. After his daughter's near tragedy, he is forced in front of the camera without his weapon of choice—the lens—to rely on. Barnes skillfully captures the unfamiliar sense of vulnerability that Michael experiences.

Thorpe writes in his program notes that Michael "and those who do the job in the real world are unquestionably brave, committed, and necessary." Safety allows us to begin to understand the psychological and emotional price that these men and women pay. A finely crafted play that is of the moment, it is one of those important works that will change the way you look at the world.

'Tis the Season

Midtown is brimming with tourists. The tree is lit, the Rockettes are kicking, and your wallet is empty. Ah, Christmas in New York City. But this time of year not only ushers in a wave of doe-eyed sightseers eager to see the famous Rockefeller Center spruce. It also brings new theatrical productions, each dedicated to this most celebrated of seasons. With so many shows to choose from, deciding what to see is as daunting a task as navigating along Fifth Avenue. Search no more. If you are going to see one show during the holidays, let it be A Broken Christmas Carol, produced by the Broken Watch Theater Company at the Michael Weller Theater. It is a perfectly updated take on that classic Christmas tale: Ebenezer Scrooge is an evil CEO, the Cratchit family has entered a reality-TV contest to win money for Tiny Tim's leg surgery, and two Jewish kids look for the season's meaning at the mall. A Broken Christmas Carol gives the audience a shot of Christmas spirit spiked with 21st-century cynicism and irreverence.

The play is actually the combination of three separate stories written by playwrights James Christy, J. Holtham, and Kendra Levin and seamlessly woven together into one unified tale. "Yet to Come," by Holtham, is the story of a lapsed homeboy, Shawn (Keith Arthur Bolden), who is forced to remember the life he left behind when he is visited by the ghost of his friend DeWayne (William Jackson Harper).

Like Scrooge and Marley, Shawn and DeWayne were once friends and business partners. DeWayne died on a Christmas Eve years earlier when the two were on a drug run. Bolden, as the withdrawn Shawn, and Harper, as the loudmouth, wisecracking DeWayne (it is hard not to compare him to Chris Rock), play off each other with ease. As a result, hidden underneath the barrage of politically incorrect jokes

Olsens: The Musical!

The highbrow tradition of the theater and the lowbrow phenomenon of celebrity culture seldom go hand in hand. Usually, the only times the two worlds converge is when a Hollywood A- or B-lister decides he or she needs to be taken "seriously" as an actor by performing in something with no loud explosions, and preferably by Shakespeare. Occasionally, though, these two areas do come together on a decidedly less erudite mission, and the results of this unorthodox partnership can currently be seen at Don't Tell Mama. The Misadventures of the Wholesome Twins, running through Dec. 19, is a musical parody based on the travails of America's favorite twins, the Olsens

Brat Pack: The Next Generation

"You see us as you want to see us, in the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain, and an athlete, and a basket case, a princess, and a criminal." --John Hughes The Breakfast Club gave us more than a memorable hit from Simple Minds and a young Emilio Estevez. The film firmly cemented once and for all the quintessential archetypes of high school into popular culture. You were a Molly, a Judd, an Emilio, an Anthony Michael, or an Ally, whether you liked it or not.

Ten years have passed since The Breakfast Club debuted, but these conventions of teenagedom are still pervasive, making Sonya Sobieski's new comedy, Commedia dell Smartass, all the more relevant. Commedia dell Smartass, produced by New Georges at the Ohio Theater in SoHo, takes these archetypal characters and flips them upside down and inside out. Her "cheerleader" is a type-A Girl Scout obsessed with her future; her "jock" is a Fencer with Machiavellian instincts; her "sensitive outcast" is a pantaloon-wearing Clown of ambiguous gender; and her "nerd" is a shlubby guy named Henry who dreams of teleporting to the moon.

Sobieski's irreverent style in this quirky commedia dell'arte pokes fun at hackneyed teenage stereotypes. Yet she does not denounce the existence of such stereotypes. As a result, she just might be the John Hughes of the post-9/11 generation. I mean this as a compliment: like Hughes, she has a clear insight into teenagers' lives, but unlike that iconic movie director of the 1980's, she avoids the pitfalls of sentimentality by employing a distinct snarkiness. At times, this snarkiness borders on pretentiousness, which may be Sobieski's goal. Not only is she riffing on pop culture archetypes, but she is also taking a shot at the presumed savvy of teenagers today, and at world that forces them to grow up too soon.

Sue Rees's simple set

In and Out of Eden

The story of Adam and Eve

The Audience's the Thing

If you are reading this review, you have probably, at one time or another, sat in the audience of a show. You watched the actors onstage portray all sorts of characters: sociopaths, drunkards, thespians, witches, revolutionaries

Life Under Occupation

The West Side Theater is slightly dank and musty and not at all inviting. At one point, midway through the show, the lights in the theater suddenly go out, and the crashing sound of bombs exploding interrupts the silence. It transports you to another, much darker world. It is nighttime in Iraq. There is no water, no electricity, only candlelight. It is powerful and real. We know the politics, see the pictures, and hear the rhetoric. Americans held hostage, Iraqi protests in the street, and gunfire in Fallujah. The war in Iraq has raged in one form or another for nearly three years, leaving hundreds killed, thousands injured, homes destroyed, businesses burned, and a country liberated. We all know the story.

But what we do not know is the whole story, and it is one that needs to be told. The Six Figures Theatre Company, in adapting the "Girl Blog From Iraq"

Knitting, Sex, and the Single Life

Who would have ever imagined that knitting could be so symbolic of the trials and tribulations of growing older, finding love, and discovering happiness? That the scores of women (and even some men) who regularly attend knitting circles are metaphorically stitching through their frustrations and disappointments in the hopes of creating a wondrous new scarf

The Spread of Burbitis

Think back to the days when you were fresh out of college. New York City was your playground; your friends meant everything to you; and you were ready to change the world. But eventually, you gave up a life filled with recreational drugs and after-hours parties in exchange for aged Bourbon and garden soirees, quit pursuing your passion in order to take on a more sensible job, and moved out of your tiny studio apartment in the Village for a house with a nice piece of property in, dare I say, suburbia. For many people, life is full of these necessary transitions. But what is gained or lost as you move from one stage of your life to the next?

This question is central to D. Clifford Hart